The Faith That Faded

By T.E. Kalem

RAISIN

Book by ROBERT NEMIROFF and CHARLOTTE ZALTZBURG

Production Directed and Choreographed by DONALD McKAYLE

Time falls like snow on all but the greatest of plays. It blurs their shapes, buries their points, exaggerates their defects and smothers their urgencies under a blanket of fresh, and sometimes chilling realities. When Raisin in the Sun first appeared in 1959, it heralded the awakening of the black consciousness. The central event of the play, the decision of a ghetto family to move into a house in an all-white neighborhood seemed just, proper and fittingly democratic. It also seemed like an elementary step toward righting racial inequity and a hopeful symbol of color-blind brotherhood. But 14 years later, when the aspirations of many blacks are directed toward other goals, including separatism, the decision and the issues that it raises seem hopelessly dated.

Making Raisin a musical does not update it but shoves it into the realm of soap operetta. The cast, however, does work wonders. As the widowed matriarch of the Younger clan, Virginia Capers is one of those Rock of Ages women, pure survivor-cum-saint. Her voice is a trumpet, a caress and a sun-glazed sword. The most powerful song in the score, Measure the Valleys, is hers, and she renders it with the fiery melancholy of go Down Moses. The rest of the company is appealingly human and uniformly talented.

The dances have the cumulative frenzy of a Holy Roller meeting, but nothing can animate the drama's faded, though once fashionable faith in integration.

.T.E.Kalem

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